Former PM Gordon Brown is calling for "fundamental change" in the UK's constitutional arrangements to avoid Scottish Independence (Image: PA)

Sign up to FREE email alerts from Daily Record - daily

When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they’ll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. OurPrivacy Noticeexplains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time.

The UK needs to change fundamentally to stop Scotland opting for Independence, Labour former prime minister Gordon Brown will say.

Brown will state in a key note speech on Monday that "cosmetic gestures" by Tory Prime Ministe r Boris Johnson will fail to keep the country together.

The ex-PM will attack what he will describe as "PR gestures" such as suggestions of moving the House of Lords to York, as he insists that only "substantive" moves will keep the union together.

Brown will say that more than cosmetic changes that look good are needed.

A Pro-Independence march in Glasgow on January 11 (Image: Getty Images)

And he will state that the UK will have to change fundamentally so Scotland "does not abandon union" and regions can feel respected in it.

Speaking at a Westminster event organised by the group Hope Not Hate on Monday, Brown will say: "The Conservatives are accepting the need for change but clearly cannot contemplate the scale of change needed.

"We must reboot and renew Britain or we risk losing it."

It comes as the governments in Westminster and Holyrood stare each other down on the issue of Indyref2.

Top news stories today

He will say: "An outdated institution 200 miles or so north of its current location is still an outdated institution.

"I will argue for a Council of the North and Council of the Midlands that bring together local authorities, Mayor and MPs and in the form of a Northern Exchequer board take powers from the Treasury over the allocation of regional resources - so that on vital issues, outlying regions and communities will no longer be governed simply by dictates from London second guessing what they want.